New rent seeking strategies in housing in Spain after the bubble burst

Abstract

[eng] This paper analyses the new rent seeking strategies in housing implemented during Spain's financial crisis. The Spanish Model presents a paradigmatic case of the need for capital to reinvent itself through the articulation of new mechanisms for the production and appropriation of urban rent, as the crisis revealed the limits of strategies that were implemented during the bubble period. Amongst these new strategies, the paper analyses the rescue of financial entities, the creation of a 'bad bank' and the establishment of Spanish REITs. These mechanisms are leading to financialisation of rental housing and the emergence of vulture funds as new transnational owners of housing.